Full transcript: Jason Goodman on London Real
0:47 This is London Real. I’m Brian Rose. I also host London Real, which is a similar setup in the same studio. We’ve had guys like Bruce Perry from the BBC series Tribe in here. We We had Tim Ferriss from The 4-Hour, everything.
0:59 We had Max Keiser from Russia Today screaming about Bitcoin. I even had George Galloway in here and he charmed my pants off. It was ridiculous. You’re not the first. Yeah, I know.
1:10 I was like, you know, there was no anger, there was no yelling. I was just like, wow, he’s a really cool guy to hang out with. Did you have a man crush? A little bit, yeah. If you ever want to see an interview with George where he’s not yelling about someone or telling the reporter how the BBC is unfair or the Murdoch media is being unkind to him, then watch his episode of London Real because yeah, he was great.
1:31 Really put the Scottish slash Irish charm on me. But you can check that out at LondonReal.tv, but we’re here to talk about tech today. My co-host, as you probably know, is entrepreneur Colin Pyle, who runs the online language school Lingos, Goodman Coffee Company, Crew Cafe. You’re raising money left and right. You probably can’t go a day without raising money, right?
1:51 I hope I’m going to go a lot of days without raising money after, yeah, we just closed two rounds with both those companies. So happy days ahead, we got lots of landing strip and hopefully not raising money anytime soon. Okay. It really is like a… Is it tiring?
2:07 Yeah. What is it? A lot of pressure once you raise it. It’s a lot of pressure, but yeah, it’s just tiring. You just, you know, knocking down doors, people are, you know, tearing apart your business plan, which is good, but it’s just a lot of work.
2:17 You want to get back to XQ? Yeah, you want to get back to running the businesses. Okay. Thanks for being here today. Our guest is Mr. Jason Goodman.
2:24 Thanks for being here. He’s the founder and CEO of Albion, which is a creative partner for clients who want to build, challenge your brands, products, and communications. Very good. Thank you. I think one of your clients said you’re quote, not a digital agency or an ad agency or a strategic agency.
2:42 You’re just a great agency. I don’t know why I picked that quote, but I don’t know. It sounded pretty good. That’s a kind one, right? Yeah. I mean, you have some big clients.
2:49 You’ve got clients like Wonga, Giffgaff, Skype, Betfair, Compare the Market, Funding Circle, Zoopla. If you’re not in Britain, these are big companies that have very distinct brands that we see on TV and they’re very noticeable. Those are very big. You’re also named as one of the most influential people in digital, one of the hundred most in London last year. Everyone on here is always like part of a list.
3:16 It’s true. How many lists are there? Courtney Boyd Myers was something Roxanne Varga was 30 under 30 I want to be on the 43 under 43 list this year or some type of list. Yeah I want to be on that list too. I think we’re exactly the same age aren’t we? I think we are yeah so anyways Jason welcome to Silicon Real. Great to be here. Thanks so much for being here you know we’ve had a variety of guests I think your episode number 28 we’ve had entrepreneurs of course we’ve had venture capital guys like Simon Cook.
3:47 We had Benjamin Southworth when he came straight out of number 10 downing. But we’ve never really had a guy like you. We’ve never had the Don Draper of London tech startup. We’ve never spoken with someone who kind of builds brands. And I was trying to think about exactly what Jason does today and it’s like, you’ve got all these ideas and then you have a client base or the market and like where the rubber hits the road in a way I think is what you do.
4:13 Yeah, you know, listen, we are, we do lots of different things and hopefully, you know, we put the product, the brand, the entrepreneur front and center, you know. So we’re sitting behind trying to work out how to make things accessible, understandable, work with customers, consumers. You know, I think we keep people straight and narrow on startup and also we’ve just got years of experience of working with entrepreneurs, you know. And they’re a funny bunch of beasts.
4:44 I love them dearly. And they’re the only people we work with. They must be very suspicious of big business or big agencies. Yeah, look, I suppose when they walk into our place, we’re just down the road. I don’t think they get a sense that we’re kind of like, you know, we’re not one of the big guys.
5:00 In spite of the scale and the work we do with others, I think people kind of get a strong sense that we’re very much part of the scene. I’m very much, you know, I’m an entrepreneur first, I’m an ad guy, I’m an ad guy second. So, you know, hopefully they can understand some of that authenticity. I’m not saying it’s reflective of my marketplace, but maybe that’s what makes us different. Also, you’ve had a mole in our operation now since the beginning.
5:27 Mr. Bryce Kean has been in here working probably covertly for you. And we probably, unbeknownst, Ted, we have a lot of random probably clients of Albion, but they have a great story. So I can’t, you know, it’s such a small community. I can’t tell who knows who or that kind of thing, but Bryce Kean is part of the three beards.
5:43 He works for All Beyond Drive, which I believe is kind of your PR wing. Yeah, so he was actually the founder of it, so it’s one of the new businesses within the business. Do you know what I mean? We’re constantly getting into new areas that our clients want support on. There was no one doing PR and social really, really well for the tech scene.
6:02 There’s almost like a really flaky reputation around kind of the people who are out there, and he’s really nailed it in the last 12 months. And people, they’ll say it if they’re not happy. So there was space for it, and hopefully we’re gonna deliver a really good job. Yeah, Bryce has been an integral part of this show early on. I knew nothing about the business or the industry.
6:25 Colin had been here, what, a year or so? So he put us in touch with all the great people, and hopefully we’ll see him back here as a co-host soon. Yeah, we just got back into town next week. I think so, yeah, if you’re watching. But he’s probably working.
6:38 You’ve been in this area now for almost 12 years, 11 years? Yeah, it’s 11 years as Albion and before that, I started an interactive agency back in the kind of, you know, mid 90s, in 96, that’s still going today, very successful shop called Tribal DDB. So I kind of got into, I’ve done two, I’ve started two shops and yeah, you know, I kind of, so been part of the internet scene for some time. So you’ve been there and done that. I mean, we’ve had like Bindi Karya on here, talking about the olden days, like in 06 and 07, There was like tumbleweeds going around all around about I mean you were here even before that. Yeah, we opened we opened in London fields Which is poor man shortage?
7:18 Or was then that’s the fact where back in 2002 And then when there was that was just when there was a couple of us and that was classic start in your bedroom type stuff It was my bedroom That was the street you lived on that was the street I lived on exactly and then we got to work with some really interesting entrepreneurs and then we moved to Great Eastern Street which obviously is around the corner from here. Just opposite the Hoxton Hotel, number 70, it was a shop and there was about three of us that started in there and that kind of grew to half a dozen people in the first 18 months and then we moved into the tea building which is a bit further down the road. Therefore, we’ve watched them in part of it.
8:05 We always ask people that are sitting there, what’s been your past, what’s been your future, and why do you think you guys are winning your space? What’s a typical day for you, or people that don’t know, that are tuning in, that just are in tech, or just are in finance? What is it that you actually do? If I’m a brand like Wonga three years ago or five years ago and they come to you, where do you take them from start to finish? For a start, we’re a strategic partner and we were just talking before we started the show.
8:37 When you’re in startup, your life is awash with challenges. They’re not problems, challenges, and it’s just kind of like creating some sort of really kick-ass user experience which people love, talk about. That requires enormous focus around the detail, iteration, it’s all about the product. My life is spent pulling apart product experiences, trying to understand how we can make them much better, and giving really honest input, feedback, anchored on data, all sorts.
9:20 Our work is very strategic, very focused around the product. Once you’ve nailed the product, you’ve nailed your marketing. Inevitably there are other issues and that’s when communications become really important. My typical day is staying in touch with everything from the really early startups we work with right through to the big guys like Compare the Market where we’re pushing out really bold new product experiences which hopefully are going to add greater value in the marketplace.
9:53 Who came up with the Meerkats? Is that you? No, that wasn’t us. Sadly, it’s a killer advertising campaign. And now I work with Compare the Market, it’s far more focused around innovation and product.
10:08 So we’ve just put out this really cool app for them actually that launched 24 hours ago. Check it out if you can, if you’re interested in this. It enables you to go to photograph your energy bill and within 10 minutes they’ll serve you back a bunch of options which will enable you to get a discount on your existing bill. So the very experience of compare the market via the algorithm but now replicated in a really easy user experience. If you don’t have your built-a-hand you can photograph your computer screen instead and it’s just like it’s a killer idea, it’s a lovely user experience and we’re expecting it to be really successful.
10:48 What’s the name of that? Snap. Snap. Yeah. Cool.
10:53 Can I show it? Yeah. I mean, you can try to show it. I don’t know if they’ll see us out there. Yeah.
10:58 Pull it up. Pull it up. You know, it’s weird because, you know, we think of, like you think ad agency here, the guys running ads and you think guys that are placing the ads, but like you guys get involved in your user experience. I mean, you’re part of the company, basically. So basically, you know, the way we are is, it’s better to view us as being if a business could come into us and outsource pretty much all areas of product and marketing.
11:17 Kind of that was our ambition you know and everyone who comes to work at Albion has got a startup they’re working on they’re doing it on a weekend at nights they’ve got a you know they’re gonna do something themselves and they’re there to learn how to do startup okay so whether that’s in product design you know user experience creating clever communications working out how to do social PR kind of you know they get they get an opportunity to work throughout the whole area of product and marketing and I’ve also gone, you know, in my career I’ve gone inside client side as kind of interim marketing director so I’ve kind of I’ve experienced the other side you know I was working really closely with Nicholas Stenstrom in the early days at Skype and did 18 months over there helping to sort of put their marketing in place. In Estonia or at their company? No actually we were yeah we were in and out of Tallinn and their offices then were in Soho actually, ironically it was kind of and but It was when there was only about eight of us over here in Albion and it was we worked together for six years.
12:20 Is it true in a startup that that’s the thing that’s usually lacking like good marketing prowess because you get that a lot of times the tech guy or the idea guy and the guy’s going to implement it but I mean good marketing is serious business. You know something in my view there’s always something missing in startup right because you can’t afford it all you know and rarely do you have in one man or one woman or even the core team that starts something, everything you need and I think actually that’s one of the challenges of startup is working out what you don’t have and then hustling to find it. Sometimes you can hire it full time and get that skill embedded inside the business and sometimes you just have to find it in advisors.
13:00 My view, we live in an imperfect world and so I think you just have to grab what you need so I’m not, kind of more experienced entrepreneurs know that with us so they They know they can kind of cut and paste a piece of us and plug it into their operation. And at some point in time, we’ll back off and recognize that, you know, it may not be economic to keep us involved a lot, you know, and then it’d be better for them to hire full-time people who do what we do. We get that, you know, there’s no, it’s completely, totally right.
13:30 And how do you work? Do you charge the companies? Is it sort of monthly retainer or is it? It’s every commercial model you can think of because we’ve been going now for like, you know, 11 years, you know, we’ve built up critical mass. And we’ve started investing in some of the businesses that we work with. And some of the relationships that we have, like I was over at Tomico, two days ago for a client that we work with who are called Chemist Direct, really interesting e-commerce model, where you can fulfill your prescriptions online.
14:01 And you know, it’s kind of the next generation pharmacist. And in that business, not only do we do a lot of work for them on user experience, but we’ve also co-invested in the business. I sit on the board, you know. Do you have a fund, like an Avian fund? So we’ve got a small fund that we make investments out of and we tend to focus it around businesses that we’re actively involved with because the purpose of it is not to, you know, we’re not VCs, right?
14:29 But what we can do is we can add value both in the work we do and potentially some sort of discounted relationship to do without our fees. So we take equity in exchange. Sometimes we’ll actually just put cash in as well because it’ll just be a kick-ass business and it’s not the right time for us to really involve ourselves but we know about it, we get involved, we’ll invest and then maybe we’ll work with them 12 months down the line. Do you turn away business?
14:52 And I mean, it seems like when agency like you, it seems like everyone would come to you with all their ideas but we had like Simon Cook in here at DFJ and he’s like, I still need to find out what’s going on out there as in you expect these guys, everyone, to come to them. I mean, do you, A, turn away business, and B, do you always get a look on all the businesses out there? You know, you, you know, I’m constantly hunting interesting ideas, constantly trying to stay in touch with, you know, it’s an amazing, look, we live in an amazing city, right?
15:20 London’s as hot as it gets at the moment. Yeah, we’re big fans. We’re more interesting ideas than you could ever hope for. And it’s really easy. So, you know, my job is to stay connected with what’s gaining some critical mass or where the talent are kind of innovating.
15:37 And what I’m finding really interesting now is you’re getting entrepreneurs have been involved in say Skype or a Halo or a really good business. They’ve done their few years, they’ve got out for whatever reason, and now they’re doing something new. So you’ve got proven entrepreneurs doing their next thing. And hopefully we know some of them, that people know us well, and also you just have to connect. So, no, my job is to hunt out the next interesting Skype, Wonga, Betfair.
16:04 Innocent drinks, do you know what I mean? Yeah, and make sure that we’re in the right place so that we can, you know, add some value. I was talking to you earlier about sofa, sofa sounds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s like a really, you know, just fascinating business, really early stage.
16:18 You know, my instincts would tell me it’s got the potential to be really big. So get involved with them in some way. But then you don’t have the staff to get involved with everything, right? No, you don’t. So you’ve got to pick and choose.
16:29 I mean, you know, you talk about turning things down. I don’t think we turn, turning things down sounds a little bit arrogant, right? You know, you kind of, what right have we got to tell anyone that, you know, we don’t want to work with them? But I definitely think what we do is we, we have an honest conversation around, is it the right time for people to use us? You know, they may want to work with us, but maybe it’s not the right time for the business.
16:49 Maybe it’s too early. Maybe it’s too early, exactly. And we often have that conversation. And, you know, we’re constantly having informal conversations where we hopefully can help informally and people kind of start to get to know us a little better and you know come to trust us I think that’s really important. Last part of that question is where do you want to be? I think you’re around 80 employees now.
17:07 Yeah. I mean it’s funny because you I think you kind of came from big agency background you know do you want to be 300? Do you want to be involved in 10 times as much business? I mean look it’s taken us 11 years to get to 80 right so it’s like so look there are plenty of really big businesses in kind marketing services. And I think if we had that kind of single-minded focus on growth at any cost, we’d be a different type of company. No, we’re definitely far more single-minded on who we’re working with, the sort of work we’re doing, what we’re learning, the sort of team we’re building. You get to a certain size in an agency model where bureaucracy takes over, you know, creative talent starts falling apart. So, you know, our ambition is more around staying relevant and, you know, doing and doing amazing work. That’s that’s you know, it sounds pretty sounds a bit contrived, but that’s, that’s more we’re excited by.
18:08 Okay. All right, good stuff. We, we call the silicone real and so it’s time to get a little bit real and ask you just a couple questions. Devil’s advocate wise, like business model wise but you kind of you addressed it there but I mean how do you know when you walk into every day that you’re not becoming like the WPP and not becoming that AC I mean how do you check yourself when you have like really big brands you’re working on and then you get the phone call from Wonga and then the phone call from say sofa and you don’t know which one to take and like how do you kind of keep that discipline going convince a new client that you’re gonna be yeah so you know I think it’s probably like any good business we try and surround ourselves with the right advice and advisors and we listen to them. So one of the things we do, we’ve got some really good non-executant directors of our business who aren’t involved in the business day-to-day but keep us true to the faith and kind of remind us when we’re doing things not as well as we should be or maybe something that things we should think about. So there’s a guy called John Farrell, another guy called Saul Klein, he’s a partner at Index Ventures, he’s been involved with the business for 10 years now. Those guys are really important to us. You have to listen. Listening to customers is what every business should do. If you don’t listen to them, then you’re really, really
19:25 Fucking stupid. These guys will just give you a gentle reminder. You can see them at every quarter and they’ll say… They don’t give you gentle reminders. They tend to give you more kind of assertive reminders than that. Also, I think we’ve got a culture where you listen to your people. I just think an agency is no different to any other business. You know, listening to your customers or listening to the people who make up the team invariably will give you every possible clue as to what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong and we, you know, we try and do that as much as possible using all of the kind of, you know, all the things you would do in any business, you know, whether it’s quantitative research or just sitting down and talking to people.
20:07 Fair enough. Colin, what you got for me? Yeah, I guess maybe if you could talk about, probably now it’s a lot easier for you to get clients and sort of show your value because of what you’ve been able to do, but when you were back sort of starting up, from an entrepreneur’s perspective, often an agency or you know marketing or fixing the product is something that you feel sometimes you can do yourself or your team can do and sometimes you completely screw that up, but other times you just don’t have the money. So I’m wondering, you know, when When you were pitching guys, when you were a year old or two years old, how did you win that business and convince them that your service was something they required?
20:45 Very early on, we tried to do work that stood out. It was interesting. When Nicholas Enstrom from Skype came looking for us, he was recommended to us by a guy called Danny Reimer, who’s one of the senior partners over at Index, and they’d seen the work we’ve done for Innocent Drinks and literally had kind of looked at the copy on the bottles and just looked at how the brand had been created and they wanted to talk to the guys who’ve been responsible or partly responsible or involved in some way and that was us. So I think you’re only as good as your last piece of work. That’s a fact. People out you really quickly in my business. If you’re not doing really good work, particularly with entrepreneurs, they’ll slam you quite happily and I think also particularly in the UK as well actually if you’ve got any reputation if you’re not delivering on it. So I think it’s about recommendation. Virtually everything we get is because someone knows us, seen what we do. I think it’s like a, you know, there’s so much verification of our value and my marketplace is possibly one of the most competitive marketplaces on the planet. I mean you know you’d have to be in in you’d have to be almost insane to start my business. Why? It’s grotesquely oversupplied markets. But yet there are more agencies in London than you can I mean that you never want to know what to do with really.
22:21 But that’s the thing you know now in the last few years in London you’ve seen these little two, three man shops open up agencies, they’ll do your PR, they’ll do marketing and product and design. It’s hard from an entrepreneur’s perspective because I think a lot of new entrepreneurs don’t put enough value on the product and brand and the messaging to the customer. So a lot of the times they’ll might go down the wrong path and then it’s hard to reverse and pay for the same stuff again.
22:51 How many entrepreneurs have gotten the same website built twice or three times? No, God, I don’t even like to be involved in those conversations, because it’s almost like when people have been burned like that, it’s just kind of like… And sometimes there’s a reason why they’ve been burned, right, because it’s not always down to the fact that they’ve hired the wrong people. Hiring an agency is no different to hiring a person and then managing them, right?
23:14 Some of the reasons that some entrepreneurs aren’t being able to get what they need is because they haven’t been able to engage the right way. So again, you know, I think it’s kind of, look, I think verification is really important. I think you need to buy, I think you also need to buy people’s passion and commitment, right? So you should be testing, are these people gonna, like you say, you know, the whole Don Draper thing, you know, are they, you know, is there any truth in their, in what they’re saying they’re going to do?
23:43 That’s like the classic problem is that what they get sold isn’t delivered in reality. So I think, you know, testing people’s, any agent’s commitment to actually deliver and I suppose just really kind of making sure that you’re dealing with an honest broker. I mean, I do that whenever I hire third parties as well, you know, check, verify, make sure there’s lots of third party endorsements. And I think that’s why I think, you know, sometimes hiring people who’ve got no reputation is a really dangerous thing to do.
24:18 Yeah. And it’s like, you know, and if you are going to do that, then make sure it’s cheapest chips or free or free pay later. And like Mad Men, I think you’ve been quoted as saying like optimism is contagious and people can feel that in an agency is you kind of see it on the show all the time. Whoever’s got the momentum kind of gets the business and then they get too rich or they get too, you know, jaded in their perspective and then the next day as it comes along.
24:44 I mean, is that something you always try to make sure you have that? I mean, I mean, do you suggest people to look at optimism when they go to find an agency? Yeah, you know, we’ve got a really narrow focus. We only work with entrepreneurs because myself, my partners and everyone inside the business are fascinated with that culture and with the businesses that are kind of driven by entrepreneur cultures, entrepreneur led cultures. You know, if an agency is doing everything for all types of businesses, you know, you’ve got to doubt, you know, well, what’s, you know, what’s their sense of gravity, you know, why are they really capable of doing it all for everyone?
25:27 So I think, you know, there’s lots of kind of specialism and I think that’s what people do know us for that. You know, we’re kind of like, we’re very single-mindedly focused on working with a certain type of business, with a certain type of kind of challenge and mentality, wanting to change the world. And if we do work with bigger corporates, is because they want to work out how to do that with some sort of new disruptive product. So we’re not marketing soap suds for Unilever.
25:57 Or, you know, we’ll never have done. What do you want to, right? Yeah, it’s not a question of, I’ve got no lack of respect for the guys who do that stuff, but like, that’s not our core strength. Okay. You know, you’ve been here for 10 years, you know, you’ve been here since the early days, and I was just wondering what you think when say the government, you know, creates Tech City, And they’re like, guess what, you know, tech is going to be big in London or, or insert a large multinational corporate here is going to do an incubator program in shortage.
26:24 And like that happened a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, four years ago. And it’s going to happen again in another year, two years and three years. And do you get sick of that sometimes when you’re like, yeah, we know that’s why we’re here. We’ve been part of this community since the beginning. Is that frustrating a little bit?
26:38 I don’t know. I’m kind of like, I’m, I’ve enjoyed seeing all the growth And I kind of think that the growth and the excitement around tech seems to have just helped generate more and more interesting businesses. So the outcome of this kind of fascination with, you know, the culture around tech city, I think has got lots of positive effect. So I’m, you know, I’m one of those guys who I don’t, you know, cities change and I kind of enjoy witnessing and being part of that change.
27:10 If everything stayed the same, it would be really boring. I don’t, I don’t like a lack of authentic commitment to it. I find a bit kind of, you know, a bit annoying. But I think that the government agenda is driven, not not just from policy, not just kind of from a political kind of, you know, let’s get voted, get back into power. I think they do recognise this is a major potential powerhouse for the economy.
27:38 And given all the challenges that have existed, focusing on it could really deliver some results and could deliver tax and growth, and I think they’re right. Now what I’m fascinated in though is how you take it beyond just the kind of tech scene as we know it and take some of that kind of entrepreneur attitude into kind of more into normal businesses and into everyday businesses, how we can make technology and entrepreneurship kind of like, you know, just part of everyday speak for any anyone across the country. It shouldn’t just be the preserve of kind of, you know, shortage hipsters.
28:15 Should be more there. Yeah. And speaking of London tech, I mean, we always talk about, you know, Silicon Alley, Silicon Valley, where London fits in, we obviously know there’s some places where it seems to really have be way ahead, say FinTech or that kind of thing. Yeah. What do you think we are like State of the Union as far as the major global tech hubs, and what we might need to do a little bit differently, what we should keep doing rate? It’s a really good question. My instinct is that there’s so much skill around product design in London and creativity and that has become a real area of fascination now globally.
28:55 So front end experience, what’s the user experience? I’d like to see London become the unquestionable Leader globally in that area so that anyone who really wants to create kind of the kind of killer user experience Knows they’ve got to hire here Because I genuinely believe we can deliver it And it’s kind of like that kind of mentality and mindset wants to live in a city like this, right? You know, I was about to say what why would that be? Why would that be a London thing? Well, I guess we’re diverse There’s yeah, I think it’s it’s absolutely to do with the culture of the they kind of innate culture of the city You know, there’s there’s so much that kind of feeds the mind here You’re not surfing after six o’clock. Yeah, you know, I mean, let’s talk to Bryson We about his experiences in Australia Do you mean but there’s so many alternatives to kind of like the cultural alternative to work is is is to be in the sea Right or you know or riding your bike or you know, and I just think there’s kind of in in this city If you’re not going to be working, you’re going to be experiencing the real rich diversity of culture, entertainment and everything that comes with it.
30:07 I think it just feeds that kind of creative mindset. I was in Facebook this morning with Nicola Mendelsohn who runs Facebook and she was telling me that they’ve just done this kind of piece of research internally at Facebook asking all the engineers where they want to live. And they want to live in London. And as a result, Facebook are investing massively in new space and creating a much larger platform over here and really building out their engineering capability here.
30:39 Not because there’s necessarily engineers here, but rather because the best engineers in the world want to be working here, they want to be living here. So in the same way they give them free food and discounts on their dry cleaning, it’s It’s like, you know, they want to be living in a city, so I think we should capitalize upon what the city can give to the tech community. That’s been happening in California too, where people, the valley, a lot of it’s coming down to sort of the bay area, the city, because, you know, kind of our generation would rather live in kind of a city center, and have a life, right, want that over experience.
31:16 And just to finish that question out, what do you think we need to do more of to make sure London becomes that tech center, that top two in the world? So I think there are some things we can affect and there are some things we can’t affect. I think things like the cost of living is probably one of those things that can dramatically affect the ability for entrepreneurs to be here and do it. So for me, we need to constantly break out of certain hubs and start new hubs in more cost-effective parts of the city.
31:52 Go east. Go further east. And that’s what I say. I say keep on going east. You know, I’d like to see tech centers emerging also, not just in the center of the city, but at the periphery of the city as well, you know, the edges. You know, there’s a lot of cheap office space further out. And we should, you know, we need pioneers are willing to go there, celebrate it, create new hubs and kind of encourage that behavior. So kind of like not believe that the shortage is the center of the universe because it certainly isn’t. And now it’s an expensive center of the universe. So, I mean, that’s the sort of stuff I’m looking at, you know, you know, will inevitably leave this place at some point in time, you know, where are we going to go next? Dawson, further, you know, Dawson’s cool. What is, what’s the startup kitchen? Can you tell me about this project the other side?
32:39 Yes, it’s kind of, it’s something I care a lot about, which is, I think there’s like, I love what’s going on in shortage. I think it’s amazing that it’s kind of attracting all the kind of business and tech talent. But I think this is kind of this disconnect in Hackney between people have grown up in Hackney from all sorts of diverse backgrounds, often from pre unprivileged backgrounds where they’ve not necessarily had access to the best schooling or lots of networks.
33:08 And there’s still a hunger for people to start their own business. And I think there’s some of the best knowledge in the country on how to do startup here. What we need to do is we need to find a way of connecting that knowledge with kind of ordinary folk who are still hungry to open in a cafe, do a nail bar, have a brand of mechanic, whatever it is. You started off with a car wash back in the day. Yeah, I did, you know.
33:31 And listen, you know something, I learned a lot from it as well, actually, you know. And I think- Heisenberg ran a car wash, too. Exactly, very good. Take that as an awful big compliment, that’s lit, I think. I didn’t realize what was going on there, okay.
33:47 So what we’re doing is we’re working And with The Prince’s Trust, with a bunch of different kind of, you know, not-for-profit organizations in Hackney, and we’re trying to connect and create a mentoring environment between young, up-and-coming entrepreneurs who aren’t necessarily the next Facebook, but they are up-and-coming, hungry entrepreneurs in Hackney, and we’re connecting them with really experienced, clever, made-it, successful entrepreneurs who can share knowledge. So the first one is taking place at the end of the month. It’s taking place around the corner from here in Hackney House. So Hackney Council have helped provide the environment.
34:28 We’ve kind of, we’ve set it up as a kitchen. And we’ve got people like Jeff, who was from Seeders, who was on the show a couple of months ago, Saul Klein from Index Ventures, Reshma Sahoni, who founded Seed Camp, creating kind of a mentoring panel around funding as kind of the first thing that people want to know about we’ve got kind of four individuals who’ve come from got tiny little businesses or the makings of businesses who are challenged with you know how do they fund it and we’re going to help them for a couple of hours and hopefully it’ll be a really inspiring experience for them and we’ll be able to connect them with different individuals or people afterwards and we’ll be it will play some role be useful and we’re going to do that every month at Hackney House in the startup kitchen and we’re going to do around different things to do with startup and the thinking behind it is let’s create a mentoring network that connects kind of this the made tech community with up-and-coming business people in Hackney. Very cool idea and not obvious by any means. No you think people would be you know doing something for the community or yeah it’s kind of crazy that hasn’t happened but there’s a hole so let’s fill it. Yeah let’s do that. Colin what am I missing I mean you’re you’re an entrepreneur you’re in the trenches every day. I think I’d be really curious to hear, you know, you have this great sort of history of being involved in startups and in sort of product
35:53 Development and brand development. What’s the biggest mistake you see entrepreneurs make in that sphere? Yes, I think there can be an over-fascination with kind of short-termism. So for me, you know, the life of startup and you know I’ve done a you know I’ve done a couple of my own businesses, I invest in businesses, I’m kind of around them all the time, is this terrible balance juggling act that you’ve got to have between you know short-term return, creating momentum but also kind of having some sort of strategic perspective on fundamentals inside the business. So I’ll try to give you an example of that. I remember Nicholas Strom, I don’t want to keep on referring to Skype because there are plenty of good examples but one that someone was referred to recently was you know what’s the most memorable aspect of the Skype experience because let’s face it hasn’t changed in a long time right okay so for me the most memorable aspect of what we did for kind of helping to create the user experience and brand for Skype are those sounds that the Skype makes those funny kind of bleepy sounds right you know the cool the cools of strange it’s not like anything else that was Nicholas turning around to me I don’t know God I don’t know how many years ago, I guess eight years ago or whatever, and saying, you know, we’ve got to have a sonic identity that, you know, that will live for many, many years, which will be utterly imprinted on people’s minds.
37:22 Intel did it. I can hear it. Intel did it. Nokia did it before that, right? You know, it’s like, you know, global brands have done it.
37:29 He tasked us with it, you know, and in that moment in time, he invested in that. He didn’t invest in big TV advertising campaigns, he invested in that. And I think, you know, we delivered it, it’s utterly memorable and kind of things like that, which is, you know, he spent a bit of money on it. Not a lot, but you know, he bought all the rights to it, by the way. God, I wish I had royalties on that sound.
37:56 You know, I was wondering how you keep staff at Albion because you’re full of entrepreneurs, right? Everyone, it sounds like everyone in Albion has their own side project. You don’t think you only hire people that have their own cyber. Well we certainly encourage it right and it’s really good to see people like Claire Sutcliffe who went off and do co-club there’s lots everyone’s doing something and as they should be. How do we keep people well I think you have to keep people by providing them with exciting things to work on and giving them the diversity and kind of knowledge learning experience that they’re looking for.
38:28 Look we do things like you know we’ve got an option scheme you know me you know an EMI option scheme, which is, you know, I picked up that idea from some of the tech firms that we work with. So, you know, at some point in time, like any business, we, you know, there may be a moment there may be an exit of some sort. So people could have been with the business long term or benefit will benefit when that happens. You know, we do also we all do we do everything from you know, the typical stuff like how do you incentivize people lifestyle and create real flexibility in the work in the workplace. You know, there’s the dog running around I mean you know it’s it’s it’s all the things and you know we’ve stolen ripped off borrowed been inspired by all the brilliant companies we’ve worked with who also care about these things and and as a result over time you kind of create some sort of special culture and you hire people that um that you don’t have to watch they just go do their own thing well you obviously make mistakes like any business does but I think when you do make a a mistake. It’s terrible for the individual concerned because it’s not the company that they want to be in. And I think so we are definitely, again, that came out of a board meeting recently, you know, one of the board members turned around to me and said, you know, Jason, how much time are you spending on finding talent? Because we’re in growth. And I said, I don’t know,
39:46 10% of my time or 15% of my time, he said, you are missing. You are misunderstanding your responsibility as the CEO of this business. You should be spending 50% of your time on talent and the challenge of finding, hiring, nurturing the best talent you possibly can afford. You know, in his opinion, this was Saul actually, in his opinion, that is what great CEOs do. They’re constantly looking for the best people, having conversations, further ahead because you know when you miss hire or hire someone who’s kind of not as good as they could be I mean you know it’s very difficult so it’s terrible long-term consequences absolutely yeah like Roger Sterling what would he do he’s always looking for the big talent right I think Roger Sterling is somewhat distracted by drinking by the talent oh by the talent is another bad man reference you know I haven’t gotten into madmen I feel you’re even allowed on I’m feeling very left out of here.
40:48 This is a very Canadian thing to say, isn’t it? Isn’t it, to me, yeah. Now, how much does Mad Men parallel your life? Do you watch it in chuckle sometimes? Do you watch it and say, it’s not like that?
40:57 Or like? Well, it’s a different era, right? So I wasn’t born or around then. No, I think I think. They were the rock stars of their era.
41:05 They were absolutely the rock stars. I think there are many interesting analogies. I think the world of creativity, there are some creative processes that haven’t changed. And maybe that’s actually some of the problems. But I mean, interestingly, there’s been, back in the 50s, they were as focused around helping to design product as they were in communications.
41:28 And then at some point in time, probably in the 80s, everyone became horribly focused just on TV advertising. Right. And kind of overly fascinated with one medium. And I think there’s been a kind of a healthy return to being more fascinated in kind of the user experience and creating great products that people just talk about and the, you know, investing time there. That’s definitely more where my heart is.
41:53 Because the typical ad person is like the extrovert, the guy pressing the palms, the guy buying drinks, but like you said in the past, you look for people with technical degrees, you look for maybe the introvert who might maybe have a better execution technically. I think, you know, I think really good businesses need hustlers. And, you know, in some of the best tech companies we’ve worked with there is the hustler on the team but I think you’ve also got to have the technologists you know you’ve also got to have you know you’ve got to have someone who is just absolutely focused on the product and that that’s their it’s a single-minded focus so you know there’s a role for for relationship people who can manage relationships you know ultimately clients trust us with their with often with large sums of money which they can never re-spend, you know, or should never have to and so that’s the trust is really important in what we do, but you know it can’t be just all about that.
42:51 Fair enough, I’m gonna hit him with the advice question, you probably heard this before but if you could make a phone call to the 20 year old Jason, give that young man a bit of advice, I guess this was probably just after the car wash. Yeah. What would you tell him? I would tell him, I think I would tell him to go and live in a part of the world where it’s really happening so if anything now I would be encouraging this kind of generation coming through to make sure they’re living and working in an environment which is most at the cutting edge of what they’re passionate about I just think there should be far more mobility you know which is interesting because these days everything seems to be interconnected and you don’t have to move you can work from home you know I think I think what you just said about London is right you know we’re particularly good on fashion fintech you know like there are craft areas that people are particularly good at I think you you know if I have you know if I’ve got if I’ve got any regret is probably that I didn’t go to the valley when I was in my 20s domain and go and spend time where it was happening then because sure as hell it was happening there then and it wasn’t happening here. So I just think, get off your ass and go there. And also if it’s not legal to be there, then just stay there anyway and wait to be kicked out of the country. Do whatever it takes to be there. Live on YouTube. We’ve heard you need to break the law. We’ve heard
44:19 That before. Put yourself where the smartest people are that are doing what you’re doing. And so I think that’s what you’re saying. And I think there are different parts of world where there are senses of gravity, whether it’s in Shanghai or whether it’s in, you know, Africa, whether it’s in, you know, Tel Aviv, you know, and you just I think for people to become, you know, have a more of a global mindset, I mean, it kind of sounds contrived, but I suppose that’s the advice I’d give myself. No, no, it’s good advice. And something that’s come up repeatedly on this show is that you really need to be in physical contact with these people. You know, a lot of these ideas start from three people in a room, not three people on Skype, no offense to Skype. But no, I think you do need to move, A, it gets you out of your comfort zone, and B, it sticks you around people with new ideas and…
45:02 Yeah. And we’re doing… All the time, I’m trying to get involved with businesses, which have got technologists outside of London. So I’ve worked with a seed camp winner, an amazing entrepreneur called Emmy Gao, who won seed camp about four years ago, and he started a business called Brainient. His technology team’s in Romania, where they’re particularly strong in this area of ad tech.
45:26 Got one of the best engineering teams in Europe, probably, for that work. And going and hanging out in Bucharest is extraordinary. Nicholas purposefully built his team out in Estonia because they had real core strength in that particular area that was relevant to Skype. So I think mobility is everything. Right. And in Europe, it’s easy. So second part of that question is, best advice you’ve ever received?
45:51 Ah, I think, you know, some actually I was someone said to me last night and it totally rings true. I mean, you know, scaling authenticity is kind of like is is is that’s my job. Wow. What does that mean? Well, you know, if it if there’s not some truth in it, then then then don’t then don’t deal with it.
46:13 So interrogate businesses, products, people for some truth. And if you’ve got any suspicion that there isn’t anything authentic about what’s being said to you, then kind of back away, because you can’t scale kind of untruths, we kind of don’t live in that world anymore. So kind of, you know, just, I think you have to look for, you have to look, you have to search our authenticity, you know, real passion, real commitment, kind of facts, things that can’t be, you know, uncomfortable truths.
46:45 Is this business and personal? You know, I see no, you know, everything in my business life blurs with my personal life and I definitely… That’s quite cold in the episode. And I definitely, you know, you have to manage that carefully as you get a bit older. But yeah, there’s definite, lots of cross learnings.
47:07 Okay. Last but not least, that question is, you know, to the 20 year old that’s listening to us right now, you know, they could be in China, they could be in the valley, they They could be anywhere in the world. What advice do you give to them if they wanna be part of the tech startup scene? What should they do? Well, one thing’s for certain, I look for fighters, I’m drawn to people who are willing to really fight for what they want and believe in.
47:33 So kind of laid back or lack of, you have to expect to fall over a dozen times or something happens right and so I think you know you you need to look for that kind of you know determination that that’s definitely the kind of entrepreneur gene that I kind of look for in people who come to into Albion and want to have a conversation they’ve got to have some sort of steely determination how do you determine that do you ask him questions there’s anything specific where you can see it come out you can normally see something in their eyes so there is definitely a there’s definitely a mannerism of kind of you know but you know I think you also just in you look to see you know how how how many times were they pushed back before they got so interesting I was talking to my brother over at Christmas and he’s doing a startup in Tel Aviv and he’s got this gaming idea and I’ve pushed personally pushed him back I don’t know a hundred times on it, challenging him on it, and he just won’t give up. And it was this time when he talked to me about it again, I went, you know something? I’m now buying into your commitment to the idea. It’s like your passion for it, your determination. My questions are starting to feel a bit kind of shallow, unreasonable, because I somehow believe that you’re going to overcome whatever challenges come your way so I look for that sort of you know that mentality yeah no that’s sometimes it’s just passion that does it
49:09 I mean especially in startups yeah yeah passion is not there and if you don’t know it’s gonna be there for as Simon Cook says five to seven years yeah then it’s gonna be very hard to make that company roll so yeah must be tough what did I miss I always miss something yeah I did quick you know again you’ve seen so much in your sort of time in this space and with working with some great brands and entrepreneurs. If you sold Albion Dry tomorrow and what are you getting your hands into? I’d like to think I’d be back in start-up pretty quickly.
49:42 In what field though? In something totally new, because I think that’s what you should do in life and I think every good entrepreneur has got at least two or three in them. I’d like to sell a product a physical product. I’d like to sell a product or service which when I’m asleep at night makes you money. It happens. Really? If you basically worked in a service business for long enough, service businesses, whether it’s a restaurant or whatever, it’s all in the now and then you just have to keep on doing it. There’s a great fascination in businesses where just the products or online services which just, you know, when the founder sleeps they still make it. I love working with King.com. I mean those guys are unbelievable, right?
50:38 It’s taken them almost 10 years to create the smash hit that is Candy Crush and now the other games as well. And now it’s a universal phenomena. And, you know, that’s a business which at night as they sleep, do you know what I mean, you know, people are paying for it. It’s just, I think there’s a certain kind of ironic, you know, kind of appeal of that sort of thing. But as long as it’s new, as long as it’s really, I want, you know.
51:06 You feel really smart when you create a product and you wake up in the morning and you’re worth more and you went to bed, right? I’ve yet to do it, but I’ve heard that. You’re going to do it next. Well, hopefully, yeah, yeah. We’ll work on it.
51:17 And you would rather execute as opposed to be on the advising side? You think you’d rather beat that guy that has… You know, look, I definitely love what I do, so God only knows what life after, what I currently do, could be, and I don’t think about it too often, but you know, if you force me to answer the question, whatever it is, it’s got to be different. It’s got to be a completely new learning experience. You know, maybe I’d go and teach for a little while. I don’t know. I don’t, you know, but it’s, you know, I think there’s a guy called Martin Varsavsky who I’ve worked with. He created this business called Fon, which is a Wi-Fi hotspots globally.
51:55 And Martin’s on, I think he’s like, fifth successful business that he’s done since he’s been in his 20s. He’s an Argentinian entrepreneur based in Madrid. And he said after every business that he sold, he tries to take a year off to just refresh his spirits, his perspective on the world and then he goes again for another seven years. I took two. There you go.
52:20 So one year I went to school and then the other year I just traveled. I know whether you need a year or whatever but I think you need some period of times to find a new pair of eyes to understand the world around you and then chuck yourself back in again. Excellent. How do people get a hold of you? Are you one of these guys that people can actually get a hold of?
52:40 Yeah, I mean a lot of guys that sit here no names, but they’re like contact me at x at x and then like they’re really hard to get a Hold up. So Can people just like you can find me online very very very easily If you walk into our offices in the tea building, we’re on the first and second floor 56 you’re on a shy street someone make you a cup of tea and I may do that too. No, I’m pretty accessible and You know 50% of your time. We’re looking for talent apparently. Yeah So, listen, you know, exactly, we’re hiring at the moment, so like, you know, yeah, absolutely.
53:14 We’re hiring and, you know, people who think that they could be relevant for any of the roles, you know, get in touch. Fighters looking for fighters. Um, Jason, thanks so much for being here. You guys have a just a really impressive agency, you know, Bryce has been talking about you for months. So it’s just nice to see the guy behind so many like really memorable brands.
53:32 So thanks for coming and dropping science on us. It was a pleasure. I know if you guys are listening to us on iTunes, we’re on a YouTube channel, Silicon Real, come check out our beautiful website with beautiful pictures of beautiful people, right? Absolutely. We’re gonna take a picture right now, and yeah, you’re gonna look the best you’ve ever looked.
53:47 Yeah, that’s what you’ve promised, mate. You’ll be there. That’s actually why I’m here. You’re in while you’re here, right? Need a portrait shot.
53:53 Need that LinkedIn photo. Yeah, I promise, thanks. Our pictures are good, right? Yeah, your pictures are amazing. Thank you, it’s siliconreal.com.
54:03 This is episode 28, I believe. We’re gonna keep going. If you’ve got any guest ideas, please send them through on Twitter. We’re very active. And yeah, get in touch with us.
54:11 We’re always looking for people that wanna just help us take to the next level. What’s up? Are we on Wikipedia now? We’re working on Wikipedia. Okay.
54:19 We’re working on a few things. TaskRabbit’s working on getting us on Wikipedia. TaskRabbit’s working on a few things. They were here last week. Everyone’s loving Lauren from TaskRabbit.
54:26 She was awesome. Tough act to follow, but you’re doing good. Thank you. So yeah, that’s it. As we say on Silicon Real, it’s about the people.
54:33 Indeed. Thanks so much, and all the best. Great, thank you. Cheers. All right.
54:38 This is the best piece of advice I’ve ever received. I’ll go back to my wife. Just do it. There we go. Go ahead and do it.
54:45 Okay. So, you know, what does that mean? It means believe in yourself. Take a repeat. You know, don’t be afraid to take a risk.
54:50 I think what’s the worst that’s going to happen? If you’ve got an idea, you think you can start a business, go for it. What’s the worst that can happen? It’s perfect advice for the missus. That way, when you come home, you can be like…
54:59 Do you like that? Brownie points, if you’re watching, darling. Yeah, exactly. And if you’re having a tough, you know, tough finance around, you’re just like, you told me, you told me to go for it.
